In opposition to hyphenated last names, which I've always considered to be a lib difference for the sake of being different, I used to make the joke about what happens when two hyphenated people meet and get married...what happens to their names and their kids' names?

Then I actually met the child of one such family. 30 years after they made the decision to hyphenate, they junked the whole thing and just took the father/husband's name...for simplicity's sake. When the mom admitted that, she pretty much spit the word "simplicity".

The whole thing is hysterical, imho. Of all the things to get your undies in a bunch about, this seems like the shortest molehill among Everests.

Scott M: They could always choose one name from each parent. So everyone has a two-name hyphenated name, but not the same two names in each person's last name. Supposedly there are many countries where this is a long-standing tradition.

I knew someone whose parents were both from the Balkans. The father was a doctor with an impossible-to-pronounce name. The mother's name was an easy two-syllable name. The father took the mother's name, both helping innumerable patients and saving his kids from name unpronounceability.

I never understood the reason to Hyphenate. Traditionally, the name that the woman drops is not her maiden name it is the middle name: Catharine Suzanne Smith would become Catharine Smith Jones. Why hyphenate - your maiden name is still there. And if it is really important to you to carry it on, then give it to your kids as a middle name.

Hmmmm, wonder if they're really married. All I had to do to change my name was provide a copy of the marriage license, which I did about twenty-five years after the fact. No court required. I waited until I knew it would last, since I would have had to go to court to change it back.